This No Complain project is helping me immensely. I have become much more aware of when I start to feel a little unhappy / cranky and to figure out why. Often I'm either dehydrated or my blood sugar levels are low. When I address that, I feel better again.

Looking back over my times I complained, it was usually because I was "out of sorts" to begin with and then snapped when something happened in life. When I'm feeling all right, I handle those hurdles with much more grace.

Today I'm at No Complain Project Reboot 15, Day 14. So I'm nearly half-way through the 30 day goal!

Backstory: About ten years ago one of our cats, Oscar, briefly caught on fire by walking on the bed headboard when we were in bed and had a lit candle there. We of course put him out promptly, but we no longer use real candles in the bedroom and are quite sensitive about candles near the cat.

So on Sunday I was tired, hungry, and working on my photography class assignment. I was trying to take a photo of a lit candle in darkness. I decided that the ideal place for my test would be to put the candle on the futon to get the fabric wrapping beneath it and then up behind it smoothly.

I put the unlit candle on the futon. Julie the cat immediately leapt up next to it, thinking I was going to do something on the futon. That is "her spot" to snuggle with us.

I got annoyed / upset at her being near the unlit candle because there was no way I would light it with her on the futon. So I removed the candle. She hopped down. I put the candle back onto the futon. She hopped back up. I vocally grumped .

So clearly this was silly of me. The futon is HER place. This is where she likes to sit! She was being natural and normal for wanting to be on the futon. I should have chosen another place for my photo shoot of a live candle. Which I did end up doing. And it was fine. Why should I be grumpy with Julie for doing what a Julie is known to do? How could she understand that this one time she wasn't supposed to come onto the futon with me?

Really it stemmed from me being tired, hungry, and in a rush. I knew better than to let myself get into that state. The more I am aware of those warning signs, the better I can be about solving them proactively.

Still, I made it quite far before that point, and I am fine to start fresh and put my learning to good use! Sleep well. Eat healthy meals in small, regular doses . Don't rush.

OK I made it to 15 days before complaining, so that isn't too bad! That means I am now on Reboot 17, Day 2. Yesterday was just SO hot, and I knew I was tired and cranky. And then my FTP software wasn't working, and I was worn down and frustrated. So I complained about it. So lesson to self - when it's hot, drink more ice water! And turn on the fan. Life gets so much better Really, the FTP issue wasn't a huge deal. Bob gave me a hand, it got fixed, and life went on!

No-Complain Reboot 19, Day 1 - the heat got to me. Bob now put the AC in my office window and I feel SO much calmer and relaxed Still, I'm going longer and longer between reboots. That in itself is a lovely thing.

I do still hit hiccups, and they are informative, to help me review my life and what my "triggers" are. So I did hit a hiccup last night, and it began with the quite messy state of the house, me tripping over something that has been in the kitchen for at least a month, and being grumpy about it.

Clearly, having a mess everywhere impacts my serenity. So I need to take more proactive action to get this mess cleaned up and put away.

Bob and I get into intriguing discussions now about what exactly constitutes a complaint. If I make a request, but it's in a frustrated tone, is that a complaint? He'll ask - and he means this genuinely - "could you have said that in a different tone?" And I'll stop and think about it. And often I do see that while I worked to choose healthy words, I still let frustration color them.

Certainly one could say "If I am frustrated I should express it rather than bottle it up". And that is true. But then the next step should be, "why am I allowing this to frustrate me? Is it really worth sapping my energy and health levels over this? How can I deal with it in a positive way?"

Case in point - the mess in the house. It's not rocket science. The mess makes me cranky. But griping about it clearly doesn't help . If I just keep griping, that won't lead to a positive outcome. Action needs to be taken. The mess won't clean itself . So I need to map out a plan, and implement it. That would be a far better use of my energy, and would lead long term to a much happier Lisa.

I did get cranky last weekend, and it was over something that I shouldn't have let get to me. So again a reminder that I should take a deep breath and not allow "minor things" to bring stress into my world. My health is important. My ability to help others serenely is important. The more I manage my stress, the more I can help others and be healthy myself.

I feel I've done well this past week. There were various hurdles, yes, but by thinking about them I was able to find a solution of some sort.

We choose our reactions. And, in a very palpable way, we choose the world we live in. We can choose to react to something with equanimity or with stress. Why choose stress? Stress harms us. By choosing even a non-reaction we store up our energy to be used for more important projects.

Today could have been a test of my "do not complain" project. I am entering three abstract photos into a photo show. The drop-off period, to drop the photos off at the gallery, was yesterday and today from 4-7. I was planning on doing it yesterday, but when I began framing yesterday morning I realized I'd printed my prints with too much of a white margin. You could see strips of white on the edges of the photo. I also found that I really liked the combination of black mat and black frame for all three photos. I only had two frames like that. So we went out to Michael's and got another one. We weren't home until late. I then reprinted the three photos at the proper size and left them overnight to dry.

So that left today for framing and bringing them in. I woke up at 2pm or so and came down to start the process. It always takes me a while to frame photos because bits of white dust fall from the frame, get caught against the mat, and then show up as glaring spots in the final image. So there's a lot of cleaning, mounting, sealing up, finding the spots, unsealing, and so on. Eventually I get it just right where no dust has fallen into the viewable areas.

So there it was, 4:30pm and I had everything framed and ready to go. And then I realized there weren't connection points to run the wire from. The gallery requires the frames be "wired" for hanging. Usually the frames have enough of those rotating "hold the back in place" thing to just tie the wires onto those. But these frames didn't. And we don't have any of those little eye-hook things in the house.

So Bob is running off to Home Depot, so he can get home with the eye hooks, so I can wire the frames, so we can get them to the gallery by the 7pm deadline. Which is in 2 hours .

Sure, I could complain. But it's my own fault for waiting until the last minute to print out and frame these things. And it's not the end of the world. He'll get the eye hooks, we'll wire them up, and it'll be fine. And even if something else happens, and I miss the deadline, then I'll live. It's just one gallery show. Life will go on.

So I think that is the key. To prepare as much as you can so you have time to handle all the normal hurdles life has. And if you go get into a situation where you have to handle hurdles quickly, to simply do your best. It doesn't help to get stressed. In most cases being stressed makes it worse. Just do your best, and keep it in perspective.

Well, it was the mess that did me in again. I was in the kitchen climbing past Bob's amplifier and over the Dremel tool we were using to wire up my photos for my photo show, to get to my morning shake. I got in OK, but on the way out I tripped and banged my knee fairly hard. So first I let loose with some oaths, which I don't count as complaining as that is "pain reaction". But then I got into muttering about the mess, which is more in the complaining department . It shows again, if we'd just keep the mess down, I wouldn't be triggered by it.

And the mess *was* down only a few weeks ago when we had friends visit - so this is all new mess. Which I think is part of what frustrates me. No need for dremel tools and amplifiers in the kitchen!